We are still in the midst of a change that has been going on for some years now. A few years ago I read the book "The Revolt of the Public" by Martin Gurri. Gurri is a former CIA analyst; his job there was monitoring foreign media. The original edition was an ebook; what I read was an updated version published in print by a small publisher in California. The book covered the Arab Spring, similar uprisings in Europe and elsewhere, and in the update covered Brexit and Trump's first election. And it looks at how the Establishment--worldwide--has been losing control of the spread of information. After the book Gurri wrote a blog for a while, called https://thefifthwave.wordpress.com/ His title, "The Fifth Wave" is based on this concept: the First Wave was the invention of writing, the Second the invention of the alphabet, the Third the arrival of printing, and the Fourth was electronic communication--telegraph, telephone, radio, and TV. The Fifth Wave is the Internet and social media. In the first four Waves, someone had to pay the scribes, own the presses, or own the radio and TV stations. The Internet is changing much of that. I am a retiree on a fixed income; I can't afford my own newspaper or radio station, but I have a Substack that I write on occasionally, and sometimes comment on other Substacks. Yes, the traditional media are not happy at their loss of control, but the genie is out and not going back into the lamp. And I am afraid most of them have still not figured it out as Gurri has.
I can't believe the ink spilled on this non-crisis at The Post while much less was spilled about journalists who have REAL problems, like Ukrainian scribe Victoria Roshchyna, who went missing in an occupied part of her country, then died in Russian detention recently at the age of 27. She was in Taganrog, a detention center famous for torturing Ukrainians. One can only imagine what horrors were visited on her when she died. Twenty-seven. Imagining that being when your life ends. Twenty-five other Ukrainian journalists are likewise missing and believed to be incarcerated in Russia, btw.
And there are some others of us who, although not in a Russian jail, have paid a price for simply doing our jobs. My story in Newsweek, which ran 3 years ago, about 4 Satanists in Seattle who were being sued by The Satanic Temple (TST), based in Salem, Mass.., is a case in point. The story was barely out before TST began complaining about it - guess it wasn't the usual positive stuff other media dish out about them - and eventually sued Newsweek *and* me for libel. Fortunately, Newsweek has great lawyers! While this thing has dragged on though various courts, no one in the journalistic community cared one whit about the ability to report on a story without someone trying to bankrupt you for doing so. There were no sympathetic articles in New York Magazine about the reporter who took on a satanic organization. No journalism group did a fundraiser on my behalf; no one spoke out about a reporter who took the risk to go after a group that no one else has bothered to investigate. So, cry me a river, folks at the Post. The rest of us are fighting much harder battles.
Is part of this problem the divisions, for the reasons I discussed, in the niche media world? Why would newsrooms on the other side of that divide care about today's Newsweek?
But that raises another question: Why hasn't your battle with TST drawn support from the conservative half of this new media reality?
We are still in the midst of a change that has been going on for some years now. A few years ago I read the book "The Revolt of the Public" by Martin Gurri. Gurri is a former CIA analyst; his job there was monitoring foreign media. The original edition was an ebook; what I read was an updated version published in print by a small publisher in California. The book covered the Arab Spring, similar uprisings in Europe and elsewhere, and in the update covered Brexit and Trump's first election. And it looks at how the Establishment--worldwide--has been losing control of the spread of information. After the book Gurri wrote a blog for a while, called https://thefifthwave.wordpress.com/ His title, "The Fifth Wave" is based on this concept: the First Wave was the invention of writing, the Second the invention of the alphabet, the Third the arrival of printing, and the Fourth was electronic communication--telegraph, telephone, radio, and TV. The Fifth Wave is the Internet and social media. In the first four Waves, someone had to pay the scribes, own the presses, or own the radio and TV stations. The Internet is changing much of that. I am a retiree on a fixed income; I can't afford my own newspaper or radio station, but I have a Substack that I write on occasionally, and sometimes comment on other Substacks. Yes, the traditional media are not happy at their loss of control, but the genie is out and not going back into the lamp. And I am afraid most of them have still not figured it out as Gurri has.
Very good summary. I believe the key is that the basic WWW biz model gives publishers little incentive to clash with paying subscribers. See this: https://www.acton.org/religion-liberty/volume-33-number-1/evolving-religion-journalism
I can't believe the ink spilled on this non-crisis at The Post while much less was spilled about journalists who have REAL problems, like Ukrainian scribe Victoria Roshchyna, who went missing in an occupied part of her country, then died in Russian detention recently at the age of 27. She was in Taganrog, a detention center famous for torturing Ukrainians. One can only imagine what horrors were visited on her when she died. Twenty-seven. Imagining that being when your life ends. Twenty-five other Ukrainian journalists are likewise missing and believed to be incarcerated in Russia, btw.
And there are some others of us who, although not in a Russian jail, have paid a price for simply doing our jobs. My story in Newsweek, which ran 3 years ago, about 4 Satanists in Seattle who were being sued by The Satanic Temple (TST), based in Salem, Mass.., is a case in point. The story was barely out before TST began complaining about it - guess it wasn't the usual positive stuff other media dish out about them - and eventually sued Newsweek *and* me for libel. Fortunately, Newsweek has great lawyers! While this thing has dragged on though various courts, no one in the journalistic community cared one whit about the ability to report on a story without someone trying to bankrupt you for doing so. There were no sympathetic articles in New York Magazine about the reporter who took on a satanic organization. No journalism group did a fundraiser on my behalf; no one spoke out about a reporter who took the risk to go after a group that no one else has bothered to investigate. So, cry me a river, folks at the Post. The rest of us are fighting much harder battles.
Is part of this problem the divisions, for the reasons I discussed, in the niche media world? Why would newsrooms on the other side of that divide care about today's Newsweek?
But that raises another question: Why hasn't your battle with TST drawn support from the conservative half of this new media reality?